‘It’s so counter-intuitive to everything we’ve been experiencing in Canadian politics,’ says Norman Spector.

Star candidates: Journalists Chrystia Freeland, Linda McQuaig and Jennifer Hollett are fighting to be the Liberal Party and NDP’s respective candidates in an upcoming byelection in Toronto Centre, Ont. Green Party deputy leader Georges Laraque, a former NHL hockey player, is also a candidate in an upcoming Bourassa, Que., byelection. Photographs courtesy of candidates